GW King with last GW Developments

[Anything Western]

Now that 6023 has now returned to steam, how about producing this loco with the final hawksworth developments and in the following liveries
Post 1945 green with G(Crest)W
BR Blue livery
And the post 1952 BR green livery with Early Logo
Am I

the only western region supporter wanting this.

[walkingthedog]

Looks good to me AW. Every time I mention the letters G, W or R I get it in the ear from Postman Prat. Think he's just jealous that we have such good taste and that the GWR had such fine locos.

[Postman Prat]

Hi

I agree that the GWR had fine locos - until 1923. That was the point at which the GW loco development stopped!!

[Fazy]

and is that when stainer moved to the lms and maded nice big red ones!!

[Postman Prat]

Hi

Stanier left the GW in 1932 to join the LMS. Loco development had been stagnating for about 10 yrs by then. Although the LMS had some very fine engineers at the time of Staniers appointment the divisions within the company, which had been running

since the grouping in 1923, meant that only an 'ousider' could possibly do the job sucessfully.

fazy said:

and is that when stainer moved to the lms and maded nice big red ones!!

[Fazy]

will i got all the numbers right. any way we all now pratice makes perfact and you never get it right the frist time round as you can see with the castle and getting right with the jubuilee.

[Anything Western]

However the GW did do it right, the castle was still being produced in the 1950's which only proves that these locos where a big success. And anyway what about the hall class over 250 had been built. As the old saying states if it aint broke don't change

it

[Fazy]

black 5 500+ 8F 800+ the castle would look graet in red dont you think? saying that i do like 4000&2900 class saint and the star.

[NFSCARBON]

fazy said:

black 5 500+ 8F 800+ the castle would look great in red dont you think? saying that i do like 4000&2900 class saint and the star.

There is already a Hall in red so it's not too hard to imagine. Didn't Stanier's designs

borrow heavily from his time at GWR? If so you could say the Black 5 and 8F were a continuation of the GWR's designs.

[Fazy]

did'nt GWR build 8f in the war. what about the grange that was after 1923

[Fazy]

i would an inprovment not a cotinuation

[The son of Triangman]

GWR steam didn't need to evolve, steam was essentially finished after around 1922-1926. New cleaner viable methods of traction were on the scene, Stanier, OVSB and Gresley recognised that electrification was the way forward with diesels being an imterim

solution. Crews to work dirty steam were getting harder to find, coal prices were going up. Steam carried on mainly becuase all the tooling was there in the workshops, it was tried and trusted, and fuel was plentiful.

Gresley was a big electrification

fan as was OVSB and Stanier. The GWR was somewhat blinkered by tradition as was the LMS with it's traditions, Stanier was a new broom for the LMS and did a lot towards standardisation in the LMS on the GWR style system, a lot of old practices were swept away

or under the carpet. Unlike Stanier, Collett of the GWR didn't have such a luxury when he came to power, he had a job to do from day one to produce reliable traction such as the King's to meet traffic and board of directors needs within very short time scales.

It

is recorded in several publications that Stanier and Gresley were friends and shared ideas, OVSB of course worked for Gresley. Both Stanier and OVSB regarded Stanier as the master and this is also reocrded in several publications.

Steam was on borrowed

time from 1922/26 onwards, obsolete, dirty, high maintenance and expensive to run.

The glamour steam locomotives of the 1930's were only there due to the high costs of re-tooling and the massive investment required by the railways to modernise over

to diesel and electric traction at that time. The railways were cash strapped after the Great Depression so cost was a major factor.

[The son of Triangman]

Regarded Gresley as the Master, did a typo!

[The son of Triangman]

Anyway back to the model of a King that you would like to see?

[LCDR]

I has been recorded that the GWR DID contemplate electrification in the late 1920s, and even did the necessary costing to electrify all lines west of Exeter as a trial run. They did not, as we all know,implement the scheme, and apart from some joint running

with the Metropolitan in west London, gave up any idea of electric traction. If I can find the Railway Magazine article I will give more details. The GWR were also at varience with the mainstream by choosing Gas Turbine electric rather than diesel electric

after the War.

It was the Western Region's lack of any electrified routes that influenced R.C. Bond the CME of BR to use that region as a test bed for the Diesel Hydraulics, copying German DB practice. The other regions (including the Scottish who had

plans to electrify around Glasgow) has extensive and imminent plans to electrify or had inherited electric systems from the Pre-nationalisation companies. The Western Region was included in the overall BR electrification strategy but was a long way back in

the queue, and is still way behind even today.

[The son of Triangman]

Interesting, I didn't know that LC&DR. I know there was a lot of resistance at Swindon to change from tried and tested outdated practices and to electric traction in general at Swindon in the 1920's and I know when Stanier went to the LMS he had his work

cut out trying to drag Derby works with it's out dated Midland practices into the then modern era. It's interesting the GWR went as far pricing the job up, some more info on it would be good.

I agree about R.C Bond in Western Region BR days, didn't

the DB have a loco that was almost identical to a class 42 Warship in design?

Steam was certainly finished in the 1920's that's for sure.

[The son of Triangman]

Collett certainly wasn't in much of a situation to consider electric traction, the King's were built from drawing board to operation with incredible haste. It's interesting the GWR Board found time to consider lectric traction though.

Cost of modernising

and re-tooling was certainly the main reasons that steam carried on, without that constraint the likes of A4's, Spam Cans, King's and Duchess's would probably not exisited.

[Ozexpatriate]

The notion that the GWR was stagnant because they never built Pacifics beyond the Great Bear is misplaced.

While much of the Brunel-built railway was constructed to a high standard supporting high-speed running, there were many restrictions,

particularly in the west country, that limited the range of and the need for large locomotives. (Notoriously the Royal Albert Bridge over the Tamar was the limit of westward working for the Kings.) They simply didn't need bigger engines to compete.

At

the turn of the century, the steam railmotors (the ultimate precursors of todays DMUs) were quite innovative. While largely experimental, the GWR railcars of the 1930s were the equal of anything on the rails at the time. This kind of design was the shape of

things to come.

Churchward's innovations set the standard for steam locomotive design for many years and the Swindon practice of building based on standardized components instead of the 'bespoke' approach used almost everyone else was greatly superior

from an operational/maintenance standpoint. As many pointed out in this thread, Stanier took the Swindon methods and Churchward's design approach to the LMSR in the 1930s.

Yes, they didn't implement any electrification. Likely their business with the

Welsh coalfields had a lot to do with their choice to stick with steam.

Don't forget that the GWR led the way in many safety/signalling enhancements. I believe the automatic train control implemented on the GWR (automatic application of the brakes passing

a signal at danger) was a first in Britain, and most people forget that they did experiment with colour light signals using a searchlight signal.

[The son of Triangman]

Didn't say anything about the GWR building pacifics or about the GWR being stagnant as such just that it was like the LMS before Stainer held back in places at times by outdated practices. I did mention that Diesel and Electrification was the way ahead

and was recognised as such. Steam in general was outdated, dirty, labour intensive and getting more expensive to run way back in the 1920's, all four railway boards and CME's knew this to be the case.

However the fact that the railways were equipped

for production steam at the time and it was a tried and trusted technology was a major factor. wholesale Diesel or Electricfication mean that works and depots had to be modernised and after the Great Depression money was tight. GWR steam didn't really evolve

much more, it didn't need to as you point out, design on steam didn't really go much further.

I am aware of the invovations by the GWR and the part played by the railcars, particularly the later GWR ones.

Yes the GWR was innovative but it wasn't

alone.

Steam was effectively finished after 1922 as a form of traction and some overseas railways were quick to see this, if costs of modernisation had been lower over here I doubt the streamliners would have ever been built.

Anyway back to King's

we want to see

[poliss]

It's extremely lucky that diesls didn't replace coal fired locos in the 1920s because Britain would have been in serious trouble in WWII. If other countries saw the benefits of turning to electric traction earlier then Britain then why did I see steam

locos at Calais long after the last steam locos had been withdrawn on by British Railway?

[Ozexpatriate]

The son of Triangman said:

Steam was effectively finished after 1922 as a form of traction and some overseas railways were quick to see this, if costs of modernisation had been lower over here I doubt the streamliners would have ever been

built.

Steam was finished by law in lower Manhattan, even as early as 1903 when it was banned following a tunnel collision in 1902 caused by signals obscured by smoke. Famous steam hauled expresses like the 20th Century Limited left Grand Central

Terminal under electric traction, only to hand the train over to a steam locomotive north of Manhattan.

[Ozexpatriate]

The son of Triangman said:

Anyway back to the model of a King that you would like to see?

Producing 6023 in BR blue should be a slam dunk. With the existing tooling, this should be both appealing and profitable.

There is

a King in the Hornby range this year. Admittedly it is in the (to be gentle, let's say) 'premium priced' royal mail range along with a postage stamp.

I've taken the opportunity to purchase a couple of Hornby Kings over the years. While a retooled King

would be nice, I'd much rather see something else, like a Star or even some additional GWR-liveried (not BR) castles, not to mention new GWR coaches that actually operated before 1948.

[Anything Western]

I didn't exprect how much interest was taken in this thread, I have often thought the late 1940's era was always an interesting era since the railways went through the most difficult of times I realise that coal was in such short supply so old burning

locos were used as an experiment. I do admit GW locos did struggle on lower quality coal and that is why alot of these subtle improvements were made such as three or four row superheaters on the boilers of the main passenger locos,
And these details I

would like to see on the King class models.
I don't think I am asking too much wanting this version of model,

[Anything Western]

old burning locos - I mean oil burning locos forgive my grammar

[The son of Triangman]

French Railways and other overseas railways were devestated by the war Poliss, overhead catenary blown up, bridges down etc etc, existing steam and some new steam was produced as interim stop gap measures. A lot of these companies had electrified early

on. Yes some steam did soldier on awaiting replacement but essentially steam was on it's last legs in the 1920's.